Nintendo has announced that its long-running mobile spin-off of Mario Kart – Mario Kart Tour – is reaching end-of-service on September 30th. The company announced this through messages in the game, as caught by ResetEra user ZeoVGM, where it also confirmed that there are no plans for an offline version of the game.
“We sincerely thank the many players who have loved and supported the game since service began so long ago,” wrote the company.
Leading up to Mario Kart Tour’s servers going offline, Nintendo will be holding a few special events with their own rewards. Log-In Bonus rewards will give players access to High-End Level-Boost Tickets, High-End points-cap tickets, and rubies. Players can also take on new event challenges to get rewards like golden pipes by completing challenge cards. The in-game store’s prices will be adjusted, giving players access to a variety of cosmetic options in the Mii Racing Suit Shop.
Despite servers going down, Nintendo has confirmed that players will be able to view the stats for their past tours until January 13th, 2027. All-Cup Rankings will also remain visible until September 2027.
Mario Kart Tour was launched on Android and iOS back in 2019. Developed by mobile game maker DeNA, the title was released with only single-player content, with multiplayer coming in the following year. The multiplayer update brought in a host of game modes, allowing players to partake in Standard and Gold races over the Internet, or even challenge friends or other players nearby through local networks.
The title was immensely popular when it first came out, with Nintendo confirming that it had been downloaded more than 90 million times shortly after launch. This was considered a major success in light of other Nintendo mobile titles, like Super Mario Run, which had only been downloaded 13 million times in its launch week. In the same time frame, Mario Kart Tour had made $12.7 million.
While Mario Kart Tour didn’t leave behind much of a legacy, especially when compared to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, some of the title’s original race tracks did eventually make their way into the Nintendo Switch game through DLC.
Released in 2023, this DLC brought in 48 tracks in total, spread out into six distinct releases with eight tracks each. While many of the tracks were from classic Mario Kart games like Coconut Mall from Mario Kart Wii or Choco Mountain from Mario Kart 64, Mario Kart Tour’s contribution included Tokyo Blur and Merry Mountain.
Nintendo’s desire to move on from Mario Kart Tour shouldn’t come as a surprise, since the company had stopped making any new content for the game back in 2023. This means that, since then, there have been no new tracks, karts, gliders, or drivers released for the title. Even last year’s release of Mario Kart World didn’t prompt any major update for the mobile game.
In the meantime, Nintendo is fully focused on Mario Kart World, which it reported back in February had sold more than 14 million copies. The title is available exclusively on the Nintendo Switch 2.
